A 1977 film re-creating one of World War II's most devastating battles, A Bridge Too Far was filmed on actual battlefield locations and boasts a remarkable cast that includes Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Robert Redford, and Maximilian Schell. Based on a huge military gamble, the epic depicts how, in September 1944—flush with success after the Normandy Invasion—the Allies launched Operation Market Garden, intended to put an early end to the fighting by invading Germany and smashing the Reich's war plants. Instead, battlefield politics, faulty intelligence, bad luck, and even worse weather, led to disaster beyond anything that the Allies had feared.

"A Bridge Too Far may well be the definitive World War II movie."—Saturday Review